The Blue Water Society

The Blue Water Society was originally created to recognize members who have completed a significant ocean voyage aboard the club's boat "Miss Manhattan" and to provide an educational platform for members seeking Blue Water challenges.

After the loss of Miss Manhattan, the Flag Officers decided to revise the membership criteria.  The new criteria is: you must have completed an ocean voyage on a  sailboat which included at least and overnight sail out of sight of land and which tested your "mettle."  

For example, if you've completed a Newport - Bermuda Race or have delivered a boat back from Bermuda transiting the Gulf Stream, a journey of over four days (unless you were on Playstation and did it in one and a half) you would qualify for induction into the Blue Water Society.  

If you sailed on a boat from Block Island to Newport stopping overnight in Cutty Hunk for lobster, you would not.

If you sailed overnight along the Jersey coast as part of the club's old "Great Race," you would not qualify (because you could have swum safely to shore at any time), but if you sailed overnight from the island of Barbados to the island of Martinique, as several members did in 1994, you would qualify.

However, if during a short trip, say from Block Island to Newport  which would normally would not qualify, you were cast adrift by a waterspout, blown out into the Atlantic, survived for days on end only on the merlot, brie and crackers you cleverly stowed in your ditch bag, were subsequently picked up by a Panamanian tanker and taken to the Azores where you finally managed to hitch a ride home, then that's another story - you would qualify.

As you can see, one of the prime ingredients to acceptance is the ability to spin a great yarn.

Final acceptance into the Blue Water Society is only granted by King Neptune, who is channeled through Jean Yves Noblet.  Therefore, if you believe you qualify for induction into the Blue Water Society, please submit details of your blue water experience along with dates, boat and captain's name to mike@myc.org or:

King Neptune
c/o Manhattan Sailing Club
385 South End Ave #6H
New York, NY 10280

Each winter, members of the Blue Water Society gather for their annual dinner.  This is one of the most prestigious nights for the club and is filled with drinking, eating, laughing and making merry.  New Blue Water Society members are recognized and inducted into the society on this evening.

Photo: Getting inducted at the Blue Water Society Lobster Dinner in Jan. 2003 at El Quiote were (l to r): Gil Katz; Danielle Gallo; Jim Hedelston; Barbara Gantner; Rear Commodore John LaGrassa; King Neptune (aka Vice Commodore Peter Cavrell); Lisa Bowers; Rich Turrin; Chris Ruth; David Nicholas.

Photo: Peter Cavrell, Jean Yves Noblet & Hal Dorfman accept their induction papers at the Blue Water Society Dinner in February 2000.

Photo: The very first Blue Water Society Dinner held on the club's first floating clubhouse which was docked at North Cove in winter 2000.